Cuttack, Aug. 20: The civic body has decided to spend Rs 29.8 crore a year for sweeping, collection, storage, segregation, transportation, composting and disposal of municipal solid waste.

Municipal commissioner Bikash Mohapatra told The Telegraph: "We have prepared a five-year budget of Rs 149 crore for collection and disposal of municipal solid waste by outsourcing. The budget, along with a draft tender proposal for selection of a private operator on a five-year contract, will be submitted within the next two to three days to the state government for approval."

The decision to spend Rs 2.45 crore every month on garbage collection and disposal marks an increase of Rs 95 lakh a month in the civic body's expenditure. At present, it spends Rs 1.5 crore on garbage collection and disposal a month.

After a five-year contract with Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited of Hyderabad for municipal solid waste collection expired in April 2016, the civic body had allowed the private operator to continue in an interim arrangement on a monthly contract basis.

In August 2016, the civic body began the process for tenders on a fresh five-year contract. But Orissa High Court issued a stay order in September 2016, and on July 18, and directed to invite fresh tenders with reasonable eligibility criteria for bidders.

"The fresh tenders will be invited after the five-year budget and draft proposal gets government approval," Mohapatra said.

The high court had set aside stringent financial criteria that required bidders to generate an annual turnover of Rs 30 crore for the past three years.

The municipal commissioner said: "We have complied with the high court order and reduced the annual turnover criteria to Rs 25.5 crore. But the earnest money deposit for participating bidders has been kept unchanged at Rs 60 lakh."

Chairman of the Cuttack Municipal Commission's standing committee for licence, appeals and contracts Bikash Ranjan Behera said: "In view of the Swachh Bharat Mission and requirement of Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, the scope of work has become wider, involving sophisticated technology that incur high expenditure."

"There has also been a hike in the minimum wages, cost of conservancy articles, fuel and equipment/machineries," Behera said.

The Cuttack Municipal Corporation area is home to 1.20 lakh households with a population of 6.3 lakh spread over 152sqkm, generating 400 metric tonnes of waste every day. Officials in the civic administration conceded that the private operator engaged on a monthly basis manages collects only around 200 metric tonnes of solid waste a day.

However, chairman of the civic body's standing committee for sanitation and health, Ranjan Kumar Biswal said: "The new contract will be part of the implementation of our Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016. It will pave the way for enforcement of a wide range of penalty provisions and ensure that the private operator who gets the contract does not work carelessly."

Telanga Bazaar resident Pradip Sahu said: "Time will say whether there is a reorganisation of sanitation work by outsourcing municipal solid waste management or the chaotic system will continue to prevail."